Sherlock: Changed
by Emari-chan
Summary: Sherlock is a vampyre, and he might have forgotten to mention that little detail to John. Whoops. Set in a House of Night AU, does not actually include HoN characters/plot. Currently a two-shot, with potential for future drabbles in the same AU. Johnlock slash, rated T for language and bloodlust.
1. Chapter 1

Well, I really should be working on _All is Fair in Love and War_, but this has been driving me nuts for a week now, so I decided to just write it and get it out of my head. Seriously, I haven't got a clue where this came from; it just sort of wrote itself. The premise is completely crack, but it's written at least semi-seriously. Basically, as I was laying in bed last Monday night, I wondered what would happen if Sherlock took place in the House of Night universe. You don't have to be familiar with HoN to read this, as it includes none of the characters or plot, just overlying elements, but some familiarity with the story probably makes this more understandable.

This is... not quite PWP, but it probably doesn't have more than half of a plot, either.

I'm going to mark it "complete" for now, but I may add more random drabbles in the same AU as ideas occur to me. Anyway, in case you didn't read the description, this does include slash and bloodlust, because, well, I have no life and apparently also too much free time.

* * *

Sherlock: Changed

Sherlock stared into the bathroom mirror, lightly tracing the convoluted indigo tattoos that framed his pale features, and which emanated from a dark blue crescent moon in the center of his forehead. He spent so much time with the marks covered that he very nearly forgot what he actually looked like sometimes. He never deleted the information, though - if he forgot entirely and washed his face in public where people could see, he would doubtless have more than a little explaining to do.

"Sherlock?"

The detective winced, opening the medicine cabinet and searching frantically for the tube of concealer he kept mingled with the other two dozen chemical containers. Locating it behind the Mercury thermometer (he'd have to find a better place to hide _that_ before John saw it), he squeezed a globule of the thick makeup on his hand and began smearing it over the pencil-thin design.

"Yes, John?" he called back. He never should have distracted himself. After a full year of rooming together, John knew his schedule better than he did sometimes. Of course his flatmate would get suspicious when he began spending too long in the restroom, especially when John was eager to get in and take a shower.

"Everything alright in there?" The doctor was now standing on the opposite side of the closed door. That was, as these things went, a bad sign.

"Fine, John," Sherlock replied, half the pattern marking him as a Changed vampyre adult now invisible. "Just a bit tired after last night." They had been on a case, the two of them, chasing an exotic animal importer across London until they caught him at nearly 3:30 that morning.

"Tired?" John sounded concerned. _Damn_, Sherlock thought. "You're never tired. Maybe you're coming down with something."

"No, I'm sure I'm fine," the detective hastened to reassure him. "Don't worry about it. I'm a genius. I would know if I was sick."

"Are you sure?" Sherlock could hear John's hand on the doorknob and panicked. There was still a large patch of uncovered skin on his left cheek. "I should take your temperature at least."

"No, don't come in, John," the dark haired man said urgently, his mind racing. If he barricaded the door, John would know for certain that something was wrong, but if the doctor saw him like this... Sherlock shuddered just thinking about it.

"What, do you have your pants down or something?"

"Uh..." If Sherlock had been thinking more clearly, he would have answered with a decisive "yes", but as it was, he was trying very hard to hide his tattoos and had run out of concealer in the palm of his hand. This meant squeezing more out of the bottle, the lid of which was now stuck. "Bloody hell," he cursed under his breath.

"Right, Sherlock, I'm coming in there," his flatmate replied decisively just as the detective worked the top off the small tube. He heard the creak of the door at his side and quickly turned so that the part of his face that was still displaying the incriminating evidence of his inhumanity wasn't visible in the mirror. In a flash, he finished applying the makeup and turned the rest of the way around to face -

"John," he said pleasantly. "I told you I'm fine. There's no need to be concerned."

The shorter blonde man, still in his pinstriped pyjamas, frowned skeptically at his friend. "Isn't there? What's that?" He pointed at the concealer still laying on the counter next to the sink.

Without missing a beat, Sherlock said, "It's for an experiment. I forgot to put it back."

Reaching around his flatmate, John hefted the plastic tube. "Makeup, Sherlock?" he asked.

Sherlock assumed a decidedly exasperated expression. "Like I said, it was for an -"

"But concealer, Sherlock?" John was now definitely regarding him suspiciously. "What could you possibly need that for?"

_Not a bit good._

"It's not for -" he started to say, but John was already reaching up and rubbing his thumb across Sherlock's forehead - exactly where an indigo moon-shaped Mark was hidden beneath unset crème maquillage. The detective knew without question that the fleshtone cosmetics would rub off onto his flatmate's warm fingers.

For a moment, John just stared. Then, Sherlock could practically _hear_ the cogs turning in John's brain as the doctor worked out what that filled-in crescent meant. It wasn't like it was a state secret that there were vampyres in the world. It was a little hard not to know, after all, when some of the most famous celebrities and leaders the whole planet over were ones. Hugh Jackman, Michael Jackson, the current emperor of Japan - they all sported the telltale blue marks. Even William Shakespeare and Bram Stoker were famous for their romantic trysts with the supernatural. Vampyrism was a genetic condition, triggered by hormonal changes that activated a latent DNA strand during the teen years - of course John, as a doctor, would be familiar with it. All this flashed through Sherlock's mind as he tried unsuccessfully to meet his friend's eyes.

"Sherlock," John said quietly. "What is that?"

The detective coughed lightly. He considered lying, but the list of potential cover stories were all too incredible to be believable, even to his slightly gullible flatmate. "It's, er, exactly what you think it is."

"Take it off. The makeup," the shorter man said tonelessly. "All of it. We need to talk."

He turned and left, pulling the door shut behind him with more force than was really necessary, and leaving a stricken Sherlock in his wake. Slowly, the detective reached for a towel, holding it under the faucet to run a bit of warm water over the fluffy cotton-and-polyester blend. Numbness settled over him like an asphyxiating blanket. Mycroft told him that it would happen, that it was inevitable when one took in a flatmate. One of the multitudes of reasons that his elder brother refused any sort of emotional attachment was the risk to his job if anyone found out what he was - what they both were.

Sherlock hadn't cared. He liked John. Actually, he liked John quite a bit. It had taken Moriarty wrapping him in Semtex for the detective to take the hint, but he knew now how much the man's companionship meant to him. At first, he hadn't explained what he was for fear of losing out on the other half of the rent. Later, it had seemed too awkward to bring it up in conversation: "Oh, hey John, by the way: I'm a sociopath _and_ a vampyre. What a great combination, right?". And, more recently, he had avoided the subject for fear of driving away the only friend he had ever had. If John's reaction was anything to go by, he had succeeded in doing exactly that anyway.

With a sigh, Sherlock pushed open the door, wiping the side of his face with the towel. John was in the living room, sitting in his chair. He looked up as the raven haired man dropped into the armchair opposite, his expression unreadable. The detective did away with the remainder of the concealer before tossing the towel in the corner. Then he pressed his fingers together underneath his chin and waited for John to speak.

"So," John said finally. "You're a vampyre."

"Obviously."

The silence stretched on for a while, until at last John said only, "That explains more than it doesn't."

To this, Sherlock replied ten minutes later with, "Does it?"

"Mmm." John shifted in his seat. "Your bloody cheekbones and perfect hair, the fact that you're practically psychic -"

"Wrong," Sherlock interrupted. "I was always observant. The psychism is just a useful means of fact-checking my deductions."

"The fact that you never eat anything normal, that you get off on murder scenes - of course you would, with the smell of all that blood," John finished doggedly. "It's got to be better than getting high."

"Yes, the drugs rather lack the capacity to recreate the same effect," Sherlock said indifferently.

John shook his head. "I can't believe I didn't figure it out sooner. It was obvious!"

"Yes, it was, rather," Sherlock said quietly.

"Shut up, Sherlock, you are not helping!" The doctor was breathing somewhat harder, and there was a dangerous undercurrent in his voice that kept the detective's mouth shut. "I just _can't believe_ you didn't tell me," he said quietly. "A _year_, Sherlock! We've been living together an entire _year!"_

"Yes, I know."

"Shut _up!_" John closed his eyes in exasperation. "What on earth made you think it was okay to offer to share a flat without mentioning that you are a vampyre?"

"I didn't think you would be comfortable with it. Me."

"And so you think I'm comfortable _now_?!"

Sherlock bit his lip. "Look, John," he said quietly. "I have been the absolute _model_ example of a vampyre living quietly with other humans. No messy Imprints. No bodies in the dumpster. I've never even _glanced_ in your direction when I've been peckish - the only blood I drink is supplied by the London blood bank, not -"

"That isn't the issue!" John exclaimed. "I don't care what you are; I care that you _lied_ to me."

The detective blinked. "You don't care that I'm a vampyre?"

John rolled his eyes. "Why on earth would that make a difference? I'm already putting up with a childish prat; you can just add "vampyre" to your long list of personality flaws."

Sherlock's voice was harder when he said, "Perhaps I should have rephrased that. What I meant was, 'You don't care that I'm a blood-sucking monster?'."

This time, it was John's turn to blink. "But you're not."

Sherlock's mouth twisted in a sneer. "There is still such a thing as racism, you know. Plenty of people can't stand us. Like Donovan."

John looked ready to explode again. "Oh, wonderful. Does the whole London PD know? Am I always going to be the last one told _anything_?"

The detective laughed shortly. "Please, John. Do you really think I'd be allowed to help if they knew what I am? Donovan already calls me a freak - she'd get a restraining order if she knew the whole of it. No, you're the only one outside of the family who's got a clue." Actually, that last bit wasn't strictly true, but Sherlock wasn't interested in broaching that can of worms just yet.

Like a balloon, the doctor deflated. "Sherlock..." he said softly. "I'm sorry."

Sherlock looked at him sharply. "For what?"

"I'm sorry that you have to live like this, disguising yourself all the time. It's not right."

"That's not your fault, John." The detective's voice was unemotional, but there was a slight softening around his lips.

"And I'm sorry I shouted. I mean, I'm royally pissed off at you for not telling me, but that doesn't give me the right to go off like that, either."

"Meretricious." But Sherlock smiled, and John laughed, and some of the tension diffused itself.

"Do you know," John said, still smiling, "I have absolutely no idea what that even means?"

"Look it up," the detective told him, pointing at a dictionary on the shelf.

"Yeah, maybe I will," said the doctor. Then his eyes widened. "Oh, _that's_ what they are!"

Sherlock regarded this outburst for a moment. Then he said simply, "Yes."

John's brow creased. "Wait, what? How do you -"

Sherlock tapped his forehead. "Psychic, remember? Or "intuitive" as the female vamps prefer to term it."

"But seriously though." John was gaping unabashedly at the detective's forehead. "Your tattoos - they're -"

"Yes."

"But they're -"

"I've had them since I was twelve, so yes, I know."

"But they're _question marks_."

And they were, if one looked closely. The twisted, curved pattern was, in fact, twenty delicate question marks turned every direction, linked and looped together in a curious design that was altogether Sherlock. The dark lines should have made him look even more skeletal than he did already, but instead, they brought out some of the blue in his grey eyes and without the mask of concealer there to hide them, the detective's cheeks held a faint natural blush. Actually, John remarked absently to himself, he looked significantly more fetching that way, which, given the way women already seemed to fawn on him, was actually quite an accomplishment. He shook himself as something else occurred to him.

"You said you were Marked when you were twelve?" John asked slowly.

"Yes." Sherlock already knew where John's interrogation was leading, but he let the doctor actually ask the question for a change.

"So how old are you now?"

"I'm exactly as old as I look," the dark haired man said softly.

"Come on, Sherlock," John pressed. "Vampyres get as close to immortality as is possible for mortal creatures. So how old are you?"

Sherlock sighed. "I told the truth - I Changed thirty years ago. About. I actually deleted the date, so maybe it was thirty one. Or two. But my point is still valid. I have not yet come close to outliving my mortal life span."

"Huh." John looked duly impressed by this for a moment. Then, "Mycroft?"

The detective snorted. "Please, John. Of the two of us, he's certainly the more obvious. Everything about my dear brother is so blatantly vampyre I'm astonished he hasn't had anyone killed for asking yet."

"Of course."

John stood and was halfway to the kitchen to make tea when he thought of something else. "The body parts in the fridge, Sherlock? Please tell me that's not -"

Sherlock groaned at his flatmate's density. "No, John. They're experiments, not snacks. I've got a mini-fridge in my room to hold things you might consider... unappetizing."

"Right." The blonde man sounded nonplussed, and for once Sherlock couldn't blame him. It _would_ be a lot to take in, even if it had been obvious to a more attentive observer.

It was at this thought that Sherlock stood and strode to the window, listening to the comfortable sounds of John putting the water on behind him. Someone else knew what he was. Another vampyre. One who wasn't bothering to hide what he was. One who was definitely _more attentive_. It had taken Moriarty longer to figure it out than Sherlock approved of (five full minutes at the pool, to be exact), but figure it out he had. What made the detective uncertain was why the consulting criminal hadn't done anything with the information yet. He had expected blackmail at the very least. So far, though, not even a whisper.

John slipped a mug into the other man's spindly fingers, sipping from one of his own.

"So are you kicking me out?" the shorter man asked suddenly.

Sherlock started. Intuitive or not, John had a knack for surprising him. He certainly had not been expecting that to be the doctor's next question.

"Do I look like I'm kicking you out?" he asked quizzically.

"I just thought that maybe you were upset with me."

"Why would I be upset?"

John looked down sheepishly at his drink. "Well, I sort of invaded your privacy, didn't I, barging into the bathroom like that?"

"Do you want to leave?" Sherlock asked, his expression serious.

"Not really," John admitted.

"Good," Sherlock said, his satisfaction evident. "Without your absurd blog, I wouldn't get half so many cases."

"Does it change anything? My knowing?"

"Should it?" Sherlock returned to staring out the window.

"I don't know."

"Look, John, I'm the same as I've ever been. I'm going to continue wearing the concealer, even here at home - you never know when a potential client will walk in. The only one really in a position to change is you. So if you want to be scared of me, or are uncomfortable here, that's your prerogative. If not - if you're content with keeping up our live-in arrangement - then I don't see why anything would change."

"Yeah, alright." John leaned his head against the detective's shoulder, watching the comings and goings on Baker Street.

They were still standing like that when they got the call from Lestrade.

* * *

It had started as a small scale theft. It had escalated to murder.

The victims were a young couple, recently wed. The distraught husband, Marcus, had explained to Lestrade how his wife had heard an odd sound from downstairs and had gone to investigate. He hadn't heard anything himself, and thought nothing of it until the girl, Elaine, screamed. Upon running downstairs, he'd found his wife lying in a pool of her own blood and her killer already vanished. The only thing taken was her wedding band.

This was the story recounted to an unimpressed consulting detective by Marcus, who, though still in shock, managed the retelling without losing too much of his composure.

After Anderson took the lad back to the ambulance, Sherlock turned to John and the detective inspector.

"What's the Yard's opinion?" the tall man asked, arching an eyebrow at Lestrade.

"Well, er, the boy, Marcus doesn't seem to be behind it," the DI said nervously. John couldn't blame him - anyone would have been nervous trying to justify a position to that cold, blank countenance.

"Good so far," Sherlock drawled. "What else?"

"It seems like a simple enough case of disrupted breaking and entering..." Lestrade faltered as Sherlock's eyes narrowed. "Isn't it?"

"No."

"Then what -?"

"Think."

The detective led the way into the small suburban house. As per Sherlock's usual modus operandi, the body had been left untouched on the hardwood floor. She lay on her back, eyes frozen wide with terror. A single bullet hole broke the suntanned skin of her left temple, and having worked with the detective long enough to know what to look for, John spotted the pale patch of skin on her finger where a wedding ring should have been.

"Now look." Sherlock's steel grey eyes swept the scene with expert precision. "She says she heard a noise. Her husband did not. If the noise was that soft, why should it have made her nervous enough to go an investigate?"

"You're saying she was afraid of someone coming after her?" Lestrade asked with a frown.

"Not just 'someone' - an ex-lover," Sherlock said decisively. "They had been in contact. He probably knew she was getting married and was pressuring her to break off the engagement. She refused and married anyway."

"And then the other man was jealous so he killed her?" John suggested.

"Not immediately," Sherlock corrected. "They talked first for a few minutes. The ex probably tried to persuade Miss Elaine to run away with him. Possibly he tried to blackmail her. She still refused, so the man shot her. Sentimentality got the better of him, though, so he stole her ring as a token to remember her by."

Lestrade was nodding along, prepared to take the detective's word as gospel.

"Right, can you find him, then?"

"If you leave for a minute so I can think without being suffocated by incompetence."

The DI took this with remarkable good grace and obliged Sherlock in stepping out onto the veranda. Now alone with John and the corpse, the detective knelt and examined the faint specks of blood that led through the house toward the back door. Evidently, Elaine's murderer had gotten some of her blood on his shoes. It wouldn't make much of a trail, but it was a place to begin.

As Sherlock was about to stand, he suddenly became conscious of John's eyes on him. Apparently, the doctor was watching him more closely now to see how intensely the spilt blood affected him. Sherlock smirked to himself. It was true that he perceived the crime scene rather differently from anyone else in the vicinity. Instead of the coppery-metallic way humans understood blood to smell, to Sherlock's heightened, more _discerning_ senses, it was like fine wine, chocolate, and cocaine all at once. Certainly it was attractive, but like most carnal pleasures (drugs aside), it left the detective mostly underwhelmed. Truly, it was the thrill of the chase that he loved.

So when he stood and turned to John, taking a deep whiff of the air, it was purely for his own amusement and not due to any desire to hang around the messy corpse. It _was_ funny, though, watching John's eyes widen as the doctor made a (wrong) conclusion, and even funnier to watch the tips of John's ears go red as the detective winked and said, "Heavens, John, I never knew you were so voyeuristic."

John mumbled something between a curse and an apology as Sherlock led the way through the house and out the back.

"Shouldn't we get Lestrade?" the doctor asked, following the detective across the small patio and small yard.

"Boring," Sherlock murmured, squinting up at the neighboring building. The next lot over held an open field, but kitty-cornered to the fenced garden was a vacant apartment complex. It was old and built out of brick. The interior was probably decrepit. It was also the only obvious cover for someone just having committed murder.

Sherlock climbed over the fence, not even checking that John was behind him. He quickly found a window where the boards nailed over it were loose and pried them off, swinging his legs over the windowsill into an empty bedroom. John joined him a moment later. While they waited for the doctor's eyes to adjust (Sherlock's vision was inhumanly good in the dark), the detective outlined the plan.

"I'll go over this floor. If he's smart, he'll have stayed down here where it's easier to run away. I need you to check the other two floors in case he opted for height rather than accessibility."

"What do we do if we find him?" asked John.

Sherlock hesitated. "Call Lestrade, I suppose."

"No, but really, Sherlock..." But the detective was already off and running.

John sighed. The stairs were right at the end of the hall, so even if the metal handrail was rusting and it smelled of urine, it was at least easy to find. The second floor looked no different to the army doctor than the first - damp, musty, and abandoned. All the doors were closed, and though John put his ear to each one, he did not hear anything that sounded like a person. About halfway down the corridor he heard a scratching, but upon investigating discovered nothing more than a bleary-eyed mother raccoon and a pile of three fluffy kits.

It wasn't until the doctor got to the flight of stairs at the opposite end of the apartment building that he heard anything at all - a muffled exclamation and a thud. It wasn't coming from above him. It was coming from below him.

"Bugger," John breathed. Then he wrenched open the door to the stairwell and raced down the flight, firing off a text to Lestrade.

Back on the first floor, the blonde man could hear the sounds of a fight from in a room on his left. The door was locked, but John was very strong for someone of his stature. He kicked it once, and the old lock gave, swinging inwards.

The apparent murderer was intent on adding a second to his body count - he'd caught Sherlock by the collar of his shirt and had succeeded in positioning them both so that while the detective could struggle, he couldn't turn around without choking himself. The attacker looked up when John burst in and let Sherlock drop to the floor as he assessed the new threat. John wasted no time with sizing up the killer - neither of them had a gun in hand, so John lunged forward, grabbing the bloke (a shortish, brown haired fellow) by his vest and knocking him back against the wall.

In retrospect, a solid assessment of his opponent might have been more prudent than John had given it credit for. True, the man did not have his gun handy, but John hadn't accounted for the switchblade in his pocket. The erstwhile murderer managed to drag this from his pocket even as his head hit the brick wall, and in striking out with it gave the doctor a nasty laceration across his palm.

Sherlock, meanwhile, had caught his breath and fixed his shirt. Spotting the third man's small revolver sitting on top of his coat, the detective retrieved it when something positively ludicrous happened: the scent of fresh blood hit his nostrils and it was the _most glorious thing_ he had ever experienced.

Head reeling, Sherlock managed to knock their opponent upside the head with the butt of the gun, rendering him unconscious between the two of them. John met his eyes, and a moment later they were collapsed against the wall and giggling like idiots. That was how the DI found them shortly thereafter, puzzled, but contented to clap handcuffs on their senseless prisoner and let them alone.

John had tried, with a minimal degree of success, to staunch the bleeding of his hand with his shirtsleeve, and now that the adrenaline of the fight was wearing off, the wound was beginning to hurt a lot more. Grimacing, he upped the pressure of the fabric around his wrist. It was not his most effective tourniquet. Sherlock, too, was over his laughing fit and was standing very much with his back to the doctor.

"John," he said quietly, and the blonde man was startled to hear Sherlock's baritone sounding pained.

"What's wrong, Sherlock?" he asked taking a step forward. The detective held up his hand, and John stopped. "Did you get hurt, too?"

"You're bleeding," Sherlock practically hissed.

"Yes?" John was definitely confused - the detective had certainly never displayed any previous aversion to blood.

"You. Are. _Bleeding_," he said again, as if that was somehow supposed to make the problem more obvious.

And somehow, it did. Looking between his hand and the detective, John let out a small "Oh" of understanding.

"Yes," Sherlock said, tight-lipped.

"So you're saying you want to -"

"_No!_" Sherlock said forcefully. "I mean yes, I want to, but I _can't_."

"Why not?" John asked calmly. He could have been discussing the weather, or the reason for Sherlock's most recent experiment in setting thumbtacks on every available surface in the flat.

Sherlock let out a deep, shuddering breath. "You're the doctor," he snapped. "Figure it out."

John rather suspected the problem, but he was going to let Sherlock come out and say it. "I haven't the foggiest. All the research indicates that vampyres are healthiest when the blood they drink is fresh, so by definition, yes, you can. I understand that evolution has even accounted for this by making the experience a pleasant one for both parties -"

"_Yes_," growled Sherlock. "But it's not just that it's _pleasant_, is it? It's more than that."

"Sherlock..."

"They call it blood_lust_ for a reason, John."

There was a moment's silence.

Then, "I know that." When Sherlock glanced over his shoulder incredulously, John exhaled a little and added, "As you pointed out, I _am_ a doctor. And I certainly can't hold you responsible for wanting -"

"But you _can,_ though, and you should." Sherlock turned all the way around now, but held himself back at a distance. "I don't understand how you can place so much stock in sentiment and then say that it's alright for me to... to manipulate your emotions like that."

"Well, I offered, didn't I?" John said, frowning. "It's not exactly like you were all over me."

Sherlock threw up his hands. "You only _offered_ because you don't know what you're suggesting!"

"Then tell me." John crossed his arms, folding his fingers over his injured hand. The bleeding seemed to have slowed, but it had by no means stopped, and it was very, very sore.

The blonde man could see the detective's eyes following his every move, could see the abject longing written there, but when he spoke, Sherlock's voice was careful and measured. "When a vampyre feeds off a human being, pheromones in the vamp's saliva do two things: they act as an anti-clotting agent, and they evoke a very physical reaction in both parties. Moreover, seeing as we're friends, it would probably also create an Imprint, a psychic homing device. You think my ability to read your mind is creepy _now_? An Imprint is worse."

John nodded slowly. "Yes, Sherlock, I knew all that already. I did have to take a course on vampyre biology to get my degree, you know."

"It makes you want sex," the detective said abruptly. "Me drinking your blood would make you want sex. With me. And... I would want it, too. Neither of us would be in their right minds. It would happen."

"Which is only a bad thing if one of us is uninterested."

Sherlock blinked, frowned, and repeated that phrase to himself, trying to figure out exactly what John meant. He failed. "...What?"

John regarded the other man levelly. "No matter what you say to the contrary, I am actually not an idiot. I am entirely aware of what bloodlust entails, and I made the offer anyway. That, to me, would suggest that I am not adverse to its effects and side effects. If you are refusing, then it's got to be the sex that you're against, because you obviously want the blood."

Few things possess the capacity to render Sherlock Holmes speechless. John had just unwittingly touched on one of those things. The detective was not gaping at him, but the way he was blinking dazedly, like he'd just been hit in the head with a gun himself, conveyed some of his confusion. Seemingly without realizing it, Sherlock took a step forwards.

"But..." he said tentatively, "but you're not gay."

"True," John said, keeping his voice even. Something about the way Sherlock was looking at him was making his blood rush in ways it definitely did not normally do around other men. And perhaps it was that more than anything that prompted him to add, "Under normal circumstances. But then, under normal circumstances, I'm a depressed, ex-army doctor with a psychosomatic limp, so being around you generally doesn't qualify as 'normal'."

Sherlock's chest was rising and falling more quickly as he approached, and the flush burning in his skin was evident. When he was standing exactly chest to chest with John, he dropped his chin to his neck so that they were also nose to nose.

"You're sure about this?"

In answer, John deliberately unwrapped the blood-saturated fabric from around his hand and pressed it into Sherlock's own. The detective raised it almost reverentially to his lips, looking all the while into John's face, searching for any indication that the doctor might panic and bolt. John, however, had something of an extended love affair with Danger, and he was most definitely not about to run now, even if there was something primordially predatory about the way Sherlock's dilated pupils were trained on him.

The taller man's tongue was warm against the doctor's skin as he gently licked clean the damaged skin. Though the organic chemicals hadn't entered John's system, for Sherlock had yet to actually bite him, the hormones had been coursing through the detective's for several minutes now, and that first taste of blood - _John's_ blood - evoked a primal desire to protect and to have and to mark "MINE" in bold letters. The doctor scarcely noticed as Sherlock's other arm snaked around his waist; then Sherlock pulled John against him and a small gasp escaped his mouth, lost in the nearly feral hum that was Sherlock as too-sharp teeth reopened a cut that had only just begun to close.

It should have hurt. John should have been terrified. Instead, he was thrumming with desire and absolute ecstasy. Later, he would remember none of the details, only able to conjure up the sensation of complete and utter adoration. He had a fuzzy memory of grabbing handfuls of jet-colored curls, of pressing Sherlock's lips more forcefully to his palm.

Sherlock, on the other hand, remembered everything with a crystalline clarity, and knew without question that he had one memory that would never, ever be deleted. The way that John planted frantic kisses down his neck. John's soft little exclamations when Sherlock ran a hand down his back, and the way they turned into an actual moan as the detective pressed up against him. Inevitably, John's legs gave out and they sank to the floor in a puddle of arousal. It was at that point that Sherlock began to wonder exactly how much of John's blood he'd taken, and a pang of guilt ran through him.

As if knowing that Sherlock was considering pulling back, John took hold of the detective's collar and pulled him closer. That decided it. If John was getting psychic impressions of what Sherlock was thinking, then they had definitely Imprinted - probably very strongly. Sherlock had definitely drank too much of the doctor's blood already. It wouldn't do either of them any good if John passed out. Beside being bad for him, it would also be difficult to explain to Lestrade.

Attempting to regain some semblance of self-control, the dark haired man carefully pulled his teeth from John's skin, running his tongue over the cut again to close it. The same vampyric chemical that prevented the blood from clotting responded to a vampyre's cessation in feeding and changed structure, now providing the opposite function. A single, tender lap, and all that was left of the grim relic of a murderer was a pink line that would fade with time.

John blinked groggily at Sherlock.

"C'mere," he murmured. When the detective obliged, he reached up and pulled Sherlock's lips down to his own, kissing him soundly. "You taste like blood," he informed him sleepily.

"And you," Sherlock laughed quietly, "taste delicious."

"Tha's good t' know," John mumbled. "'Elp me up."

Sherlock did, but the doctor was sound asleep before he was on his feet. Sherlock chuckled and hoisted him easily. He would just have to tell Lestrade it was fatigue and let him draw his own conclusions.

* * *

When John woke three hours later, he was home on Baker Street, tucked under a blanket. He smiled, took a sip of the water in the mug sitting next to him (having quickly double checked that it was not in fact the remnants of some forgotten experiment), and went back to sleep.


	2. Chapter 2

Once again, I should be writing the last two or three chapters of _All is Fair_, but what the hey. The idea for this second edition wasn't leaving me alone, and I had at least one person interested in seeing more, so here it is and maybe now I'll be able to sleep at night. For point of reference, this story is set somewhere between A Scandal in Belgravia and The Hounds of Baskerville, while this chapter is occurring about a month after the first one. Future drabble-things may be posted as plot bunnies warrant. Expect blood and Johnlock.

* * *

Sherlock was on the computer when John told him he was going out. John liked to do that on days when the detective was being especially difficult. Sherlock had set the curtains on fire that afternoon while conducting a flame test on a piece of magnesium, and though John had merely looked at the scorched fabric and sighed, the detective rather got the impression that that might have had something to do with the doctor's need for a good pint at the pub.

Sherlock was still on the computer an hour later. In the middle of counting the screen's pixels, it occurred to him to wonder when John would be home. He could feel, through the strength of their Imprint, John becoming lightly intoxicated. Well, at least he was enjoying himself.

Sherlock was just getting up from the computer, carrying his tea mug, when his head felt suddenly cleaved in two by an ear-splitting migraine. He collapsed back onto the couch, the mug sliding through his surprised fingers. The detective could see it falling, had actually calculated its trajectory, but though he _knew_ how to position his hands to catch it, a wave of nausea spun his consciousness counterclockwise and Sherlock found himself incapable of exercising meaningful control over his limbs. He missed the handle. The cup dropped, landing on the couch exactly where he had predicted it would, and all the tea came spilling out.

A minute passed.

The bizarre dizzy spell dispersed somewhat.

Rubbing his forehead vigorously, and trying to determine what could possibly have evoked such a reaction, Sherlock glared at the wet spot now spread across the settee. That was John's seat, and he was going to be even less happy with the detective when he got back and saw the mess.

Taking a deep breath and finding himself recovered, Sherlock hauled himself to his feet and removed the offending cup from where it was now sitting on its side. Retrieving the paper towels from behind the pickled liver in the kitchen cabinet, he made a vague attempt at sopping up the cold liquid. John would expect it of him. Actually, John would expect it of anyone else, but not of Sherlock. Perhaps the detective could surprise him pleasantly for a change with his efforts, although he knew full well that the doctor would prefer his flatmate not have spilled the tea at all. The thought brought a small smile to Sherlock's lips. Surprising John was simultaneously far too easy and exceptionally difficult.

It was possibly that very juxtaposition that drew him so strongly to the human man. John was, on the surface, absurdly predictable. He wore the same jumpers every day, swapped trainers for dress shoes when he had a date (or more recently when he and Sherlock went to dinner), and never took sugar with his tea. And yet, at the same time, the quiet doctor wasn't afraid hardly of anything, could manage a crack shot with a revolver under duress, and consistently found the detective's deductive powers a source of amazement instead of annoyance or fear.

It was the complexity of it that had caught Sherlock's initial attention, and his persistent inability to solve the underlying pattern that had retained it. Indeed, every time he thought he had the man figured out, John did something else that surprised him. It took a lot to surprise Sherlock Holmes.

The detective gave the laptop a petulant shove and dropped with the grace of an aggravated feline onto the sofa. He was particularly vexed, so rather than bring his fingertips together under his chin as he so often did, he rolled over and buried his face in the crevice where the sofa's arm merged into its back.

What was _wrong_ with him?

Vampyres do not get sick in the same manner as humans. They can be hurt or even killed in most of the usual mortal ways, but their altered biology prevents them catching cold. Sherlock couldn't remember the last time he had had influenza - in point of fact, it was a memory he'd deleted. That being said, he was well aware that he shouldn't be getting dizzy for no reason, and now on top of it all, he could feel a headache building in his temples. The consulting detective nestled himself further into the cushions. He would just take a nap until John got home.

In all probability, it was the last thought regarding the doctor that did it. One moment, everything was the peaceful black of sleep, and the next, everything was a riotous blaze of confused sound and color. When the dream solidified, Sherlock found himself standing in a locker room; idly, he noted that it was the locker room at the pool where Carl Powers had died. Truth be told, this was not his most engaging nightmare. He had relived the incident at the pool a hundred times in his dreams, and here he was again. With a mental sigh, Sherlock stepped out the door onto the pool deck.

He waited.

That was odd.

Usually in these dreams John would have walked out by now.

There was a noise from inside the other locker room, the one which John was supposed to walk out of wrapped in an overcoat filled with Semtex. Apparently, this dream had decided to deviate from memory a little earlier than usual. Sherlock pressed his hand against the door; to his consternation, it went straight through what appeared to be solid wood. Abandoning the logic of physics, the detective stepped through the closed door and took in the sight on the other side.

John was sitting on a bench, leaning back against an orange locker. His forehead was beaded with sweat, his hands were zip-tied together in front of him, and he was whispering, mantra-like under his breath, "Sherlock, for the love of _God_, please help". The raven-haired man felt his breath catch in his chest - something about this dream was all wrong.

"Oh, Johnny-dear, I'm home," called an unpleasantly familiar voice. Moriarty's sing-song tones echoed sinisterly off the concrete walls and the doctor's hands tightened into fists. Then John opened his eyes and _looked_ at Sherlock, and the detective sat bolt-upright on his couch in Baker Street, panting.

For a moment, there was absolute silence of the most anticipatory nature. That was before Sherlock stood and muttered, "Buggering Imprint," as he headed to the door to grab his coat.

It was perfectly obvious what had happened, Sherlock reflected during the twenty minute taxi car ride to the pool. John had been returning home from the pub. He'd been ambushed and then drugged - that was the nauseous moment Sherlock had had, when the detective's Imprint told him what had occurred before his mind had any conscious understanding of it - and now he was having visions of his partner being held captive by Moriarty. Sherlock felt his grip on John's gun (hastily retrieved from the desk drawer) tighten.

How could he have been such an idiot? John never stayed that late at the pub, hadn't been gone so long since his last date with a vapid receptionist. Of course this would happen, Sherlock berated himself. He made it a point to _always_ follow John, whether the doctor was aware of it or not, ever since the last time they had met the consulting criminal at the pool. John had been out on his own then, and he was out on his own tonight. Last time, they'd very nearly both been killed. Hopefully his lapse tonight wouldn't finish the job.

The cab pulled over to the curb next to the dark natatorium, and the cabbie turned around in his seat.

"The fare is eight pounds fifty," he said uncertainly, "but you do know this place is closed, right?"

"Mmm, I know," Sherlock said, handing the man his fare. "I'm just meeting a friend here."

He stepped out of the car and allowed the taxi to disappear down the next corner before he jumped the fence into the pool lot. John was okay, he told himself. He would know if he wasn't. The door to the locker room was locked, a problem that took the detective less than thirty seconds with a bent paperclip to rectify.

Inside, deep shadows cloaked most of the room, lit as it was only by the dimmest of after-hours maintenance light. There was almost without question the corpse of an unsuspecting janitor stashed away somewhere. Drawing back a plastic shower curtain, Sherlock looked down at the body stuffed perfunctorily in the small stall, still dripping wetly from a bullet wound to the head. _Ah_. There he was.

This locker bank was entirely devoid of life. The only sound was the soft gurgle of water running through the metal pipes. So far, his vision seemed to hold out with the facts - lack of a murder weapon rather indicated that the janitor hasn't just shot himself in the shower, so _someone_ was there. Then again, the odds of his having "just a dream" had always been slim. It was not unheard for vampyres to have perfectly innocuous dreams, but it was also not an everyday occurrence. Sherlock had nightmares, and if he didn't have nightmares, then he had visions. He'd learned to ignore them a long time ago, and perhaps the only noticeable effect was his dodging a bullet on a case that someone else might not have thought to duck away from. This was the first time that the extrasensory information was cued in to someone else. It could only be a result of his Imprint.

John was going to be pissed. Sherlock was late again.

The detective stepped out of the locker room and into the pool area itself, raising the Browning's to chest level. Still, there was no sign of anyone, human or otherwise. There was, however, the almost inaudible sound of voices coming from inside the second locker room. Thus far, the vision was two for two. The detective pressed himself against the door, listening intently.

"- do you want?" John was asking, his voice almost too steady.

"Me?" Sherlock could just imagine Moriarty's expression of wounded pride. "Does Uncle Jim _need_ a reason to pay little Johnny a visit?"

"Most people would have one," said John. "But then, I guess you're not 'most people'. Is this about Sherlock again?"

Moriarty chuckled. "Very good. He's managed to teach you something, I see. But then, what's a pet that can't do a few tricks?"

"Why am I here? You're not going do the thing with the Semtex again, are you? Because that's getting a little old."

"Oh, John," Moriarty sighed. "Has anyone ever informed you that bravery is really just a euphemism for stupidity?"

"Yeah, Mycroft said something about that once, actually," the doctor replied.

The criminal mastermind scoffed. "Do _not_ talk to me about Mycroft. He isn't any fun at _all_. I'd say he needs to get laid, but that's really too disturbing an image, even for me. No, I wanted to talk to Sherlock. I got bored."

Mentally, Sherlock could envision John raising his shoulders. "You could have called him. I mean, you have his number. You've got my number, too. There was no need to kidnap me. Again. It's getting a bit cliché, isn't it? This? The pool?"

"Call it a repeating motif," Moriarty grinned. "As it happens, I was planning to call the pretty-boy detective. I was worried, though. I thought he might not come play. He loves playing with you, you see, so I just had to extend you my invitation first."

"Thanks," said the doctor, a hint of sarcasm entering his voice, "but I think I'll have to decline. I'm going to miss the Doctor Who reruns if you keep me here any longer."

"Mmm, sorry, Johnny-boy," Moriarty said, his phone beeping as he plugged something into it. "That wasn't really a _request_. Let's give him a call, shall we?"

There was a final beep, and then Sherlock kicked the door open even as his phone started to ring in his pocket.

"Evening," he said softly.

John looked shell-shocked. Even Jim Moriarty looked momentarily surprised.

"Well, well," the criminal mastermind said, canceling the call. "What are you doing here?"

"I came to play," Sherlock said, shrugging as he stepped into the dingy locker room. "I believe that was rather the point?"

"Yeah, duh." Moriarty stepped out of the shadows, crossing his arms over his chest. The fluorescent light was enough to illuminate the scarlet tattoos wrapped over his face, like sanguine spiderwebs. The crescent Mark on his forehead was similarly blood-red. "You've sort of ruined the fun, though," he continued. "I mean, I can't hardly lead you on a wild goose chase around London if you're already here, can I?"

"Sorry," Sherlock replied with a smirk. "I just really don't have time for that. So I'll be taking John and leaving, if you don't mind."

"And if I do mind?"

Sherlock just cocked the pistol by way of answer.

"Ah ah ah," Moriarty tutted. "No so fast, there. You might, er, _regret_ it."

"How do you mean?" The detective's eyes slid between the criminal and his friend, who was regarding him still with some measure of startled disbelief. Apparently, the doctor hadn't believed he could exert pressure on their psychic link, no matter what his biology professor told him was true.

"It's just that, you see, shooting me would have _consequences_." Moriarty rolled up his sleeve, revealing a small black piece of equipment strapped to his wrist like a watch. "This is a signal jammer," he explained. "There are two hundred kilograms of C-4 in the next room, and another device trying to set it off. The jammer is the only thing keeping this place from exploding like an egg in a microwave. Naturally, it's attuned to my DNA and my pulse. Stop my pulse and stop the jamming signal. I'd be dead, but then, so would you."

"I told you," John said from behind him. "The bomber thing. It's getting to be overdone."

Moriarty did not look remotely troubled by this criticism. "Overdone? Perhaps. And yet, it remains astonishingly effective, wouldn't you agree?" He smiled, snake-like, at Sherlock. "So, the only question now is what to play."

"I hope you're not about to make some chess metaphor," the detective sighed.

"Now who's being cliché?" Moriarty winked and pulled John by the collar. "On your feet, Johnny-boy." Turning back to Sherlock, he added, "Your move."

Sherlock pocketed the Browning's, watching the criminal mastermind through slitted eyes. "How about we leave John out of this? He's not the one you're actually after, here."

Moriarty shook his head. "Bad move, dear. You're supposed to act uninterested in his welfare, remember? Otherwise I'm just reminded of the fact that so long as I have him, I have you."

The detective laughed mirthlessly. "And if I appeared 'uninterested', you'd hurt him anyway to see if the indifference was genuine. You'll have to try harder than that."

A snicker twisted Moriarty's lips. "Not bad. But you've already lost, you see? It's one thing to shag him, but to actually have _affection_ for the good doctor? Caring is a characteristic of the losing side. You want me to prove it?" He pulled John closer with his left hand and withdrew a penknife from his pocket with his right. Holding the razor-thin blade to John's throat, he grinned at Sherlock. "Nice concealer," he said conversationally. "It must be strong, to hide what you are from everyone. Tell me, does your pet know? Or did you hide that from him, too?"

Sherlock's mouth was set in a grim line, but he answered readily enough. "John knows _exactly_ what I am. And we all know what you are."

"Prove it," Moriarty hissed.

The detective glanced at the knife, assessing the way it was being held and where, before reaching over for an abandoned pool towel. His eyes never left his opponent's face as he wiped off the makeup. When he finished, he lifted a single eyebrow. "Well?" he asked.

If anything, Moriarty's grin widened. "So you _did_ tell him," he breathed. "And he didn't leave you? That's commitment." He seemed to consider this for a moment, tilting his head curiously. "But I bet you want to know what he tastes like, don't you? You can't not, living with him day after day. How do you restrain yourself? Better yet, _why_ do you? Goodness knows I never bother."

Sherlock's smirk was beginning to look somewhat forced as he answered, "And therein lies the reason that I'll be the one to put an end to you."

Moriarty laughed that off easily. "No you won't." He ran the edge of the knife down the length of John's neck, drawing a thin line of blood.

The detective could see in his friend's stance John's absolute determination not to flinch, and felt in some impartial corner of his mind palace his own fury boiling over, but Sherlock brushed that aside. Neither he nor John could afford him allowing emotion to warp his judgement. The only way out for either of them was Sherlock remaining calm and, above all else, logical.

As scarlet liquid began dripping in earnest from the cut, several things happened in unison: the smell of fresh blood ripped through the air like a gunshot, Sherlock felt a stinging pain in his own neck and a simultaneous rush of desire, and Moriarty took a deep breath of the air. Immediately, his expression turned from triumph to sly calculation.

"His blood smells wrong," the consulting criminal informed the detective. "Have you noticed?"

"I wouldn't have any idea," Sherlock replied coolly.

"No, it does," Moriarty insisted. "It smells like - Oh. Oh _no_." He started to laugh. "You did _not_."

"Didn't _what_?" the detective asked sullenly.

"You _did_!" exclaimed Moriarty through gales of laughter. "You Imprinted on Johnny-boy! Oh dear, we _have_ been bad. What'd you do, push him up against the wall and have at it? I know _I_ wouldn't mind -"

"Stop it," Sherlock growled.

"Oh, we _are_ touchy. Does it bother you if I do this?" He ran a finger across John's neck, catching a drop of blood, and licked the red liquid from his thumb.

"Sherlock..." John began, the edge of anxiety in his voice.

"It's okay, John," Sherlock assured him, but felt his own features draining of what little color they possessed.

Moriarty wrapped his fingers around the doctor's waist and pulled him to his chest.

"You know what comes next, don't you?" the madman asked, his eyes never once leaving Sherlock's face.

"I believe you said something to the effect of 'burning the heart out of me'," supplied the detective, "but I suppose I expected a bit... more."

"Oh, there will be more," Moriarty informed him. "Consider this the pre-show, not even my opening act." Then without further ado, he plunged his teeth into John's neck.

For all of thirty seconds, Sherlock watched his flatmate struggle. He could feel his friend's mingled pain and terror, felt his heart flutter as he began to lose blood. Then the organic chemicals started to filter into John's bloodstream, and the doctor slumped back against Moriarty in a drug-induced faint.

Sherlock stood stock-still as waves of his friend's carnal desire - for someone else - washed over him, but his sharp, analytic mind picked it apart. Everything about it was biochemistry. There wasn't, anywhere in John's psyche, an emotional reaction that wasn't painted by disgust or by loathing.

That, more than anything, settled Sherlock. He raised the revolver to the height of Moriarty's mid-thigh. The problem with people, he decided, was that they always assumed you were shooting to kill. The consulting criminal did not even notice. He was getting a little too grabby for Sherlock's tastes as well. That would have to stop.

The detective cocked the gun. His finger was actually on the trigger when he felt a sudden wrench in his gut. The weapon slipped in his hand. What was happening?

In the millisecond before it happened, Sherlock figured it out. Moriarty had drank too much of John's blood, enough that all of the enzymes which altered the composition of his blood and marked him as _Sherlock's_ had been drained. Their Imprint was breaking.

The millisecond passed, and time stretched the borders of reality again, not because the detective's rate of conscious processing surpassed it, but because the moment their psychic link shattered, Sherlock felt his world implode on itself. The pain of it had to be psychosomatic, but that didn't stop it lighting up every nerve in his body like wildfire. His head rolled back on his shoulders and his knees buckled. It seemed like he ought to have screamed, but he had forgotten how to make sound. John's gun clattered from trembling fingers onto the waterproofed floor.

With a self-satisfied smirk, Moriarty let John collapse to the ground with a soft thud and quiet snap. He gave the detective a grin that bordered on serpentine.

"Well," he began, "that was fun. Have to do it again sometime. This is entirely your fault, you know. You should keep better track of your pets."

Sherlock's reply, had he been in any condition to formulate one, would have been scathing, but he was interrupted by a fist driving itself into the criminal mastermind's jawbone.

John stood, breathing heavily, over the body of his captor. Possibly his right hook would have been less effective had not the back of Moriarty's skull come into sharp contact with a metal pool bench.

"Bastard," John muttered, pressing his hand to his neck.

"John?" Sherlock choked out, tasting bile in his throat. "How did you...?"

"You're not the only one allowed to be clever," the doctor smiled wryly. "Zip ties - not actually that hard to break, provided that you tighten them first and then bring your wrists down hard on something. Moriarty let go of me, so I snapped it over my knee. Not bad, for a 'pet'." This last was uttered somewhat more bitterly than Sherlock would have liked to hear, so he gestured weakly at himself.

"A little help -?" was all he had to say before John was at his side, pulling him to his feet and holding him close.

"The Imprint broke," the doctor observed.

"I'd noticed," said the detective faintly.

"It hurt you."

"Yes."

"I won't let Moriarty hurt either of us again. Ever."

The corners of Sherlock's mouth quirked in a smile. "Quit making promises you can't keep and phone Lestrade. We're still standing in a building full of C-4, remember."

Hastily, John fired off a text to the detective inspector, and Sherlock dug through the contents of his coat pockets until he found a tube of concealer. In ten minutes, the place was abuzz with police officers. Half the LPD must have come out to ensure Moriarty's successful arrest. Lestrade took the story from John as Sherlock fended off paramedics trying to wrap him in a shock blanket.

"Go give him one," he said, gesturing brusquely at his flatmate. "I didn't even get hurt."

One of the doctors looked at him oddly. "It was Dr. Watson who told us that you might need it."

The detective turned to stare at John, who gave him a small wink even as he explained how after kidnapping him, Moriarty had cut him up a bit for laughs. Lestrade was grim-faced by the end of the (somewhat edited) retelling, and assured John that Moriarty was being transferred to the highest-security prison London had at its disposal.

* * *

It was well past midnight by the time the pair of flatmates stumbled into 221B.

"Good God," John groaned. "You're never going to let me go out on my own again, are you?"

"Nope," Sherlock answered shortly, hanging his coat on the hook.

"Well, I guess we'll just have to stock up on vodka the next time I go for groceries."

"Mmm," Sherlock hummed in response, sidling up behind John and wrapping his arms around the doctor's middle. He pressed his lips against John's shoulder, and then it was John who was sighing in contentment. The blonde man turned around in his partner's embrace and kissed Sherlock soundly, loving the feel of the man's soft mouth moving against his own. The detective walked him slowly backwards until the back of John's legs ran into the sofa seat, at which point the doctor barely hesitated before collapsing onto the cushions and pulling Sherlock onto his lap.

"Are you," the raven-haired man asked between kisses, "sure you want this?"

John ran his hand through Sherlock's hair, catching his fingers on jet curls.

"I think I answered that question once already."

The doctor and detective had steered clear of serious intimacy ever since they Imprinted the previous month; that wasn't to say that they didn't snog each other senseless, because they did. There had even been a few evenings where jumpers and button-down shirts had been abandoned on the carpet. The fact of the matter was simply that John was generally too shy to take things any further than that. Sherlock was now quickly drawing the conclusion that John had gotten over his nerves, if the hand sliding suggestively down his back was any indicator. The detective was in the midst of testing this hypothesis, subtly adjusting their position on the couch so that he could pin John down on the seat, when the doctor whispered, "Bite me."

Sherlock tensed. "What?"

"Bite me," John repeated. "Please."

"We don't have to do this," the detective said, feeling his stomach clench. "If the only time you want me is when you're drugged on vampyre venom, then really, it's probably better if we -"

"Shut up." John grabbed Sherlock by the chin, forcing the other man to meet his eyes. "That is not what this is about," he said seriously. "Whether you bite me or not, I'm going to bugger you through this bloody sofa."

Sherlock smirked a little bit at that. "Is that so? Because last I checked, _I_ was the one sitting on -"

"I thought I said to shut up?" John's tone brooked no argument, but there was a playful light in his eyes and he ran his thumb over the detective's lips. "Now," he said in that no-nonsense voice that all doctors come to possess. "My request is really a very logical one. For one thing, it is entirely possible that Moriarty was able to force an Imprint of his own on me earlier this evening, in which case he knows where I am and what I'm doing. At the moment, that's embarrassing. At other times? That could be the death of either of us. The most sure way to break an Imprint is to create one with a different person, am I right?" Sherlock didn't answer, but there was a change in his expression that suggested he wasn't unimpressed with John's argument. "Furthermore," the doctor continued, his grip on the detective becoming tighter as he shivered, "I can still feel his touch on me _everywhere_. Get rid of it. I am _yours_, and no-one else's, Moriarty's least of all."

Sherlock leaned forward, covering John's mouth with his own. After a leisurely moment, he pulled back enough to murmur, "You _would_ choose to follow the sensible line of reasoning with an emotional one."

Raising an eyebrow, the doctor hooked his fingers through the detective's belt loops and pulled him even closer.

"Still think caring is a disadvantage?" he asked, speaking in the sort of timbre that said "people who don't care don't get to do _this_".

Sherlock grinned, his expression only describable as wicked as he less-than-gently lowered John to lay across the settee, pinning the doctor's good shoulder in place.

"Caring may not be an advantage," he said, settling himself so he wouldn't crush his partner, "but I'm beginning to think it may not be a disadvantage, either."

One hand he pressed against John's chest, monitoring the doctor's pulse, and the other he threaded through short blonde hair. Though harder to see in the dim light, there was on John's neck a reddish patch of raised skin set along a thin, scabbed line where earlier a penknife had run its length. Sherlock's lips brushed over the inflammation, noting John's imperceptible shudder as the doctor erased the phantom sensation of Moriarty's caress from his memory. A lightning spark of anger ran down the detective's spine. Moriarty could do as he pleased, save one thing - John was _his_. More accurately, he was John's. No criminal mastermind, however clever, was permitted to take any part of it.

Sherlock pressed a line of kisses down the exposed skin, letting the doctor relax into it. John was lazily plying the hem of the detective's trousers, so he plainly was not too distressed by his present vulnerability. At such close quarters, Sherlock's heightened senses could actually detect the scent of John's blood rushing through his carotid arteries. There was something off about it, a distinctly metallic tang that shouldn't have been there running in undercurrent. The detective's spark of displeasure fanned itself into a concentrated flame, like a blowtorch, hell-bent on eradicating every last reminder of Moriarty's assault on his Consort.

Both Sherlock and John were too absorbed respectively in their thoughts and the happy haze of comfortable arousal to notice when the vampyre detective's teeth grazed his flatmate's throat. It was only in the split second when enamel pierced flesh that John started and Sherlock discovered he'd just been taken over by pure instinct.

John waited for a rush of fear to take him over - if Sherlock wasn't careful, John could bleed out and die in a matter of minutes. Surely, the doctor asked himself, it wasn't possible for him remain completely relaxed when someone - even the man he found he loved - was draining the lifeblood from a primary artery in his neck? A moment later, he decided that it apparently was. Sherlock Holmes had nothing but his complete and absolute trust. Melting into the couch, John felt the last vestiges of the evening's poison seep out of him, in both the literal and figurative interpretations of the expression.

Sherlock, meanwhile, was putting John's dearth of resistance to good use, angling his face to fit in the crook between neck and shoulder, letting hot liquid flow over his tongue, sweeter and more volatile than Scotch, or nicotine, or cocaine. In spite of the kaleidoscope of competing desires devastating his senses, the detective kept himself composed. He had to know exactly what he was doing, or else he could kill John without even trying. The human body holds approximately four quarts of blood. Getting a pint drawn for the local blood bank left most people feeling woozy. According to Sherlock's calculations, he was nearly halfway to that point already.

The metallic taste had all but disappeared, and the detective was quite sure that the sixth sense he tended to ignore had heard something intangible snap moments before. Whatever hold Moriarty had managed to get over John was most assuredly broken. That in mind, the detective gave himself to controlled abandon, allowing him to draw more forcefully on John's system, renewing the ancient contract that informed those who Knew what to look for that John was Taken, and that anyone who tried some taking of their own would suffer the most painful consequences the detective's immaculate imagination could invent. With a sound that was not so much heard as _felt_, Sherlock sensed an Imprint blaze back into life, stronger and more impermeable than ever. It seemed that John too felt a difference, for he smiled into the detective's hair.

"Now that's more like it," he said. The doctor's was voice turning ragged, a fact which was not just a result of blood loss.

With a single motion, Sherlock closed the bite mark - for all that it was still visible, it may as well have never been there.

"What was that about you buggering me through the sofa?" Sherlock asked, looking up at John through heavily lidded eyes.

Between their ribcages, the detective felt his partner's heart rate pick up ever so slightly, and the hands around his hips suddenly made Sherlock _very_ aware of where they were.

"Did you want something?" John asked, sounding amused.

Sherlock rolled to the side, pulling John on top of him in the same motion.

"I thought I was supposed to be the one with the smart-ass comments," he half growled, perfectly conscious that the part of John that was a physician was reading the same signs of piqued interest in the detective that Sherlock could see written all over his flatmate.

John began pulling at the buttons of the detective's shirt, moving with teasing slowness, until Sherlock ripped the fabric out of his hands and finished the job himself, throwing the red button-down unceremoniously on the floor.

"Bit keen, are we?" John asked.

"Too right."

Sherlock slid his hands under the doctor's sweater, drawing the knit garment up and over John's head, but rather than slide the sleeves off his arms, the detective quickly wrapped the jumper around behind his back, trapping John's wrists. The detective slid back over the other man's lap.

"I told you I was on top," he said smugly.

"Good luck with that," John replied.

"Hmm?"

Next thing he knew, Sherlock was pinioned again underneath the ex-army doctor.

"That jumper doesn't have buttons on the sleeves," John informed him tartly. "It's a little hard to tie someone up in a shirt that slips off."

Sherlock almost managed to argue with that assessment. Then John's hand came to rest rather close to the detective's inner thigh and a protestation transmuted into a strangled inarticulation.

It sounded something like "Nrghh".

* * *

Later, when they were laying, spent, in a sticky pile on the couch, Sherlock chuckled lightly.

"What?" John asked, turning his head by a fraction of a degree to look at his flatmate.

"I was just thinking," Sherlock smiled, "that this makes my mess with the tea look like nothing."

John's brow creased. "What tea?"

The detective blinked. "Who said anything about tea? And what was that in my email about a giant ghost-dog?"


End file.
